Pedagogical Implications

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立 政 治 大 學

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who preferred solving problems by themselves, and cooperative learner, who would like to get answers through discussion or outside help. These four participants in this study were very like Raimes’ students (1985) who didn’t possess some features characterizing themselves as a group. Considering the fact that this study was a case study in nature, this present researcher paid much more attention to individual differences rather than similarities characterizing them as a group.

Concerning the writing process, two features were covered: the habit of

re-reading and “thinking in English.” Re-reading was used to help writers to think up better connected sentences while writing (Perl, 1984). Perl (1984) further stated that the habit of re-reading best signified the recursive feature of writing process.

Therefore, the habit of re-reading determined the quality of organization. The girl who didn’t always re-read proved to make the least progress in organization while the only boy with the habit of re-reading beat the other participants with the tightly connected organization. The other feature caught my eye was the increased percentage of

“thinking in English.” At the beginning of the semester, all of the four participants admitted that they translated their ideas from Chinese into English in writing.

However, in the mid-semester, the percentages of “thinking in English” grew ranging from 30% to 50% respectively among these participants. Over decades of practice of process writing, Leki (1990) concluded that “the shifting to L1 can be a very useful strategy for generating ideas and stimulating more complex thinking in L2.” In this study, the growth of “thinking in English” seems to imply that these participants were in the beginning stage of second language acquisition.

5.2 Pedagogical Implications

The research findings above provide some pedagogical implications as below.

First, the multiple revisions should be considered to be put into practice in

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立 政 治 大 學

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N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

English writing class. Judging from the collected data, it is apparent that these four participants made significant progress both in meaning and form. If given ample time for discussion and self-learning, students are capable of making progress in content and organization through multiple revisions.

Second, the writing workshop format would be another alternative context good for teaching process writing. Abandoning the traditional classroom context, the blog-meditated process writing class was taught in the form of the writing workshop, in which students were encouraged to work either collaboratively or individually. In this blog-mediated process writing class, a variety of activities along with the online resources were provided to guide them to make revisions accordingly. The concept of seeing writing as a lonely and private writing practice was overthrown. Through a series of activities, they gradually gained support and confidence by interacting with each other. It is suggested that writing should no longer be seen as a lonely torture. By offering the adequate resources and support, there may still be some fun in writing.

Just like what Smith (2008) depicted in her study, “writing in networks like Web 2.0 becomes less an individual, isolated act of composition – one that can be read and assessed in traditional ways – and more a connected and communally experienced act.”

Third, it is appropriate to replace the traditional error correction with error marking. In the real life, people usually do not appreciate something they get easily.

This attitude may as well explain how students see the teacher’s error corrections.

More often than not, the teacher’s corrections on the essays are often taken lightly.

Students either copy down the teacher’s corrections or read and forget about them.

Students themselves rarely have chances to think about how to correct errors on their own. However, the errors marked with UCI symbols offer them opportunities to think up the correct answers. Sometimes their answers may not be 100 percent accurate, but

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what counts is the self-learning process. Just like what Hyland (1990) advocated,

“minimal marking” by using correction codes would give students a space for active correction. In this study, the error marking was proved again to offer students a chance to be active learners when correcting errors.

Fourth, the stress on content over form (Badger & White, 2000) is suggested to be another new guidance in teaching writing. In Taiwan, both teachers and students pay so much attention to language rather than on meaning that students feel a lot of limitations or pressure when trying to express themselves in English. What they fear most is nothing more than making mistakes, especially grammar or vocabulary errors, at which they might be laughed. With three years of traditional grammar training in junior high school, students are bound with these grammar rules and unable to express themselves in English because they are too afraid of making mistakes. The new focus on meaning may shift the traditional concept that accuracy and grammar account for everything. Instead, meaning should come first, and the form can be fixed in the final drafts (Barnett, 1989). Besides, Raimes (1985) noticed that “if ESL students are given enough time, show enough ways to explore topics, and given enough feedback, they will discover and uncover the English words they need as they write.” It seems that process writing can gradually release students from the spell of grammar and accuracy, thus helping them explore a proper way of self-expression.

Last but not the least, process writing also presents a useful approach to language acquisition. Whether in L1, ESL or EFL context, writing is often placed the last in language learning (Graves, 1984) because it takes too much time both in practice and in evaluation, and it is inevitable that there might be some bias in the scoring process.

In Taiwan’s English education, the most common way to study English is by

analyzing a reading text. Students are often crammed with endless grammar rules or vocabulary but lack enough practice time to output what they have learned in English,

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立 政 治 大 學

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i.e., speaking and writing. On the other hand, for those who easily get nervous or embarrassed, the fear of speaking in a foreign language is often too overwhelming to conquer. Writing isn’t as stressful as speaking. Students can take time writing or revising their thoughts over and over again until these expressions are the closest to what they intend to express. To sum up, process writing may be a proper teaching approach with which students develop their language ability in doing multiple revisions. What’s better, the text-based content of blog makes itself a convenient tool in teaching reading and writing. Also, the blog can serve as a forum where students experience how their reading and writing are evolving at the same time. Just like what was described in Smith’s study (2008), blog created a safer place for students to take risks and make errors, and thus helped them free their voice.